We arrived in a rainy Brisbane after several hours on the Greyhound with no air conditioning! After peeling ourselves from the coach seats we headed to Bunk, the hostel that we had been recommended by every travel desk on the East coast. It was a stinker! The first 2 rooms we stayed in were repulsive (one was full of 18 year olds who had lived there for 2 weeks without washing!) Our third room was much better despite a weird French guy who took a banana into t...

We arrived in Noosa on the 3rd December - another small beach town on the East coast. From here we visited Australia Zoo where Jo got to fulfil an ambition of holding a Koala. They are a lot smellier than you'd expect but she loved it anyway. We saw one of the shows at the crocoseum, which was good but nowhere near as entertaining as it would have been with Steve Irwin dangling his children over the crocodiles! We also got to feed an elephant and see tigers p...

After an overnight Greyhound journey on the 27th we arrived in Hervey Bay. After a good night's sleep we woke early and met at the hostel's bar to go to Fraser Island. We were split into groups of 9 for each 4x4 vehicle so we met our group and the first job was to write our shopping list for the 3 day trip. Whilst Jo and another couple went to the shops to pick up the food the rest of us went to the 4x4 garage to pack our car and watch instructional videos on ...

On the 23rd we arrived in Airlie Beach and set up for our next few days on the boat. As soon as we saw our boat we knew we'd picked a good one. There are literally hundreds to choose from and we've since heard nightmare stories about overcrowded boats with boiling sleeping quarters. Ours (Wings) on the other hand was perfect. A modern catamaran with air con, excellent beds and most of all a really good group of people on board. Over the three days we did loa...

On the morning of the 16th we landed in Darwin and transferred to Cairns via Australian Immigration who confiscated the packed lunch we'd cleverly decided to bring from Asia. 2 bags of fresh fruit, yoghurts and sandwiches all gone! Fortunately they didn't find our drugs or firearms so it wasn't all bad news. The weather was incredible when we arrived in Cairns so we headed for the beach. For the entire summer the sea here is full of deadly box jellyfish and s...